Issues related to the composition of audit committees have attracted significant interest from legislators and regulators in recent years. In my dissertation, I examine one overlooked component of audit committee composition – namely, the presence of female directors on the audit committee. I empirically test to see if there are any differences in the functioning of audit committee when there is at least one female director on the audit committee. My dissertation examines three issues: audit committee diligence, audit pricing and earnings management. The absence of females on corporate boards has become the focus of legislators in some countries. Prior research, in a variety of contexts, suggests that women are in general more conservative in their judgments and decisions. The first part of my dissertation empirically shows that the presence of at least one female director on the audit committee makes the audit committee have more meetings. The second essay empirically examines if there is a positive association between audit fees and the presence of female directors in the audit committee. I posit that having a female director on the audit committee will result in higher audit fees. I find no significant evidence to show that audit fees are higher when there is a female director on the audit committee. The third part of my dissertation empirically examines if there an association between the presence of a female director on the audit committee and earnings management. I find no significant evidence to show that the presence of female directors on the audit committee constrains earnings management. Overall, the results suggest that having a female on the audit committee changes the form – if not the substance – of audit committee functioning.

This thesis examines how livelihood diversification is also a site in which gender relations are unsettled, maintained and (re)configured. With the aim of strengthening the links between feminist and agrarian change scholarship, I present ethnographic material from Naga, a medium-size city in Bicol, Philippines, to explore how daily discourses, practices and performances of livelihood change are instrumental in mapping ways of life that are gendered. In the first part of the thesis, attention is devoted to the inadequate, or at least outdated, attention to gender relations in previous models of livelihood change, and to spell out some of the implications its integration may bring. In the remaining part of the thesis my aim is to indicate how this integration should be achieved. Specifically, I highlight some of the problems stemming from ‘structural’ analyses of gender, and emphasize the fresh perspectives opened up by a post-structural, performative approach. I then proceed to the Naga context, where I present two case studies to ‘flesh out’ these theoretical claims in more depth. Part One traces the involvement of state institutions in these changing political economies. Specifically, I consider how local state policies and practices associated with agrarian change are not simply implicated in people’s tendency to diversify, but also in the (re)production of gender identities. Notions of male responsibility and women’s rightful position in the home emerge as particularly important in this respect. In Part Two, I move to Pacol, a small farming community located on Naga’s peri-urban fringe. By drawing on interview and focus group material provided by ten ‘diversifying’ households, I consider how these discourses come into being; how they are worked through and (re)produced inperformances. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Current studies on the topic of sexuality in the ancient Greek world tend to favour the active/passive paradigm of understanding sexual relations which was originally proposed in Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978) and Michel Foucault's three volume History of Sexuality (1978, 1985, and 1986). In Dover and Foucault, the sexual behaviour of the classical Athenian male takes primacy, so much so that the reader of either scholar can be left with the impression that the role of the active partner was available only to adult citizen males. Alciphron's Letters of Courtesans (Book 4 of his works) depict a group of desiring female subjects who demonstrate that sexual agency, the assumption of the active role in a sexual relationship, need not be the exclusively masculine phenomenon that Dover and Foucault describe. Letters of Courtesans prove that female sexuality can be portrayed as active and therefore that women in literature can be sexual agents. Additionally, these letters demonstrate the limits of the approaches of Dover and Foucault, that sexuality need not be defined as exclusively active or exclusively passive. By approaching Letters of Courtesans from this perspective, we are able to see that ancient Greek literature includes depictions of active female sexuality that Dover and Foucault overlooked. Letters of Courtesans are therefore a way to challenge and develop the work on ancient sexuality that has followed from these two landmark studies. Because of their fictional nature and their epistolary format, Letters of Courtesans lay bare the process of Alciphron's construction of sexuality and gender. I shall therefore show that Alciphron's Letters of Courtesans are an ideal locus for a discussion of these topics. This study will establish that Letters of Courtesans ought to occupy a place of importance in any discussion of ancient ideas of sexuality and gender. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

<p>The heroine in feminist speculative fiction signifies and functions as the creator and destroyer of her community, particularly based on dystopian societies, the heroine uses the duality of creator and destroyer without the complexities of present society; however, the issues in these novels serve to highlight and emphasize problems with current gender identity and equality. Furthermore, the idea this heroine exists to destabilize narratives of patriarchy give voice to the powerless while continuing a narrative of the powerlessness, and counter narratives of gender normality. Each heroine confronts a patriarchal leader who symbolizes the faults in the existing societal regime, which allows her to undermine the hierarchy set up by men. With narrative centered on experiences of the heroine, the authors of these texts show how one voice can help exemplify the many. As heroines who incorporate characteristics of gender, they demonstrate that to lead, a person must be willing to identify not just as one sex, but as a person who understands where certain characteristics are not inherently male or female. Her role as creator/destroyer is to achieve communal, structural, and personal unity, completeness, or wholeness. The heroine looks to institute communities that depend on one another, that understand each person has strength to share, and that build trust on these shared strengths. The heroine seeks harmony with the people around her, but she also discovers harmony within herself. She must learn to accept the notion that as the creator of something new, she is also the destroyer. It is her acceptance of this wholeness that will help her lead a new kind of humanity.

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The literature suggest that many young and small firms are discouraged borrowers, that is, they need finance but do not apply because they fear denial. This research aims to investigate demand-side financing differences between male and female-owned small and medium enterprises in Canada from the perspective of discouraged borrowers using secondary data from the "Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises, 2004" conducted by Statistics Canada. Women-owned firms are found to be credit constrained according to some studies, but not so in others. To date, however, there remain a lack of studies examining if there is a relationship between gender and discouragement. The study uses multivariate research methods to examine such a relationship while controlling for various firm-specific (age, size, industry, etc.) and owner-specific characteristics (experience). The study finds that majority-female owned firms are more likely to be discouraged borrowers as compared to majority-male owned firms. The study also offers support to arguments that relationship banking is important in reducing the probability of discouragement in both young and established firms.

<p> The purpose of this study was to understand and analyze the degree to which southern California women superintendents utilized networks and mentorships and the impact it had in their career advancement. More specifically, this study set out to determine: 1) what barriers do women perceive hinder their access to the superintendent position, 2) what professional supports are available to women as new superintendents, 3) what networking opportunities assist women in their pursuit of the superintendency, and 4) what are the best networking methods used by women to ascend to the role of superintendent. This study utilized a mixed-method methodology. For the qualitative data, electronic surveys were distributed to 45 superintendents for a return rate of 42%. Three interviews were conducted for the quantitative perspective. Participants represented a diverse background and diverse school districts. The lens of feminist standpoint theory and social capital theory informed the analysis. Through the process of triangulation, the study&rsquo;s findings indicate the participants utilized networks and mentorships to different degrees and with mixed results. An in-depth analysis of the impact networks and mentorships have on women&rsquo;s career trajectory provided recommendations for networks and mentors to challenge gendered professional norms, increased access to influential people in women&rsquo;s networks, and defined career pathways to the superintendency in terms of demonstrated leadership experiences over male-dominated leadership positions held. Overall, this study finds hope for women aspiring to become superintendents. Women should participate in multiple networks and develop relationships with several mentors who are willing to share the access to the superintendency.</p>

At the turn of the millennium, cultural and gender commentators were announcing that an apocalypse was under way. Men were changing. Patriarchy was crumbling. Masculinity, in short, was in crisis. Inaugurating a collective of ‘masculinity in crisis movies’, this thesis contends that Hollywood cinema also had its own relationship to the millennial crisis in masculinity. A relationship that was in fact so prevalent and extensive, that it came to the tune of 23 titles all released in the fin de millennium moment. Each film replicating the terms of wider cultural discourse, each with a representational concern with the crisis and the apparent ‘masculine malaise’.The thesis also proposes that a dichotomous structure underpinned this cinema in which two altering identity complexes were voiced. On the one side, a presence that is distinctly feminine, where existential suffering is relieved through consumerism and conformity; whilst the other, which vitally is (re)-presented as the ‘preferred’, offered a deeply masculine, often hyper-sexual, anarchic and more violent presence. This thesis will seek to investigate these representations, whilst attempting to place them in a broader macro sphere of American socio-cultural history and commentary.From visceral male anger spectacles like Fight Club (1999) and American Psycho (2000), to ‘New Man’ white collar bashing in Office Space (1999) and American Beauty (1999), this cinema seemed to be in direct dialogue with a larger, and vitally elegiac, commentary on masculinity-in-crisis.By marking key distinctions and comparisons between ‘masculinity-as-experienced’ in socio-cultural and historical readings and ‘masculinity-as-represented’ in textual approaches to the films and their surrounding paraphernalia, this work engages with both the real and reel at the fin de millennium moment. The thesis demonstrates why the concept of a single, fixed and unified ‘authentic’ definition of masculinity may be untenable, and why perhaps this cinema seemed to struggle to avoid essentialism, irony and self-parody as fragmented characters seemed to offer equally fragmented promises of redemption through ‘traditional’ displays of masculinity.What were the origins of the ‘crisis’, and how far was the crisis an actual or primarily a discursive one? Did this cinema help create or propel the crisis rather than sooth it, and how did the representation of ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘bipolar’ masculinity speak to the crisis and its audiences in general? Why did this section of Hollywood cinema decide to re-present these identities and what, if anything, can we learn from them? This research seeks to provide answers to these questions.